Rev. Conrad Hock
1934, reprinted 1962 Pallottine Fathers, Milwaukee, WI
Discussion Questions:If you had difficulty discovering your temperament, answer this simple multiple choice question:
While reading Dostoyevsky do you:
a. Compassionate with these poor souls who are struggling with such incredible interior turmoil? (you’re melancholic)
b. Suppress a desire to take a machine gun to the entire cast of characters for their inability to get off their butts and do something to solve their problems? (you’re choleric)
c. Get bored with the whole complicated scenario after the first few chapters and ditch the book for a martini and a phone call to a fellow book group member to find out what she thinks about it? (you’re sanguine)
d. Get bored with the whole complicated scenario after the first few chapters and go take a nap? (you’re phlegmatic)
1. “Know yourself” – the Socratic axiom – is the subtitle of this booklet. Was the booklet’s explanation and analysis of the 4 temperaments useful for acquiring self-knowledge? Did it ring true?
2. “…while humility is dependent on true self-knowledge, such knowledge is better obtained by studying what God is, than what we ourselves are.” – Eugene Boylan, ‘This Tremendous Lover’. Is there danger in self-analysis? What is the difference between self-analysis and self-knowledge?
3. The 4 temperaments were analyzed by the ancient Greeks, so there is nothing ‘modern’ about it. Has Freudian psychology left a distrust of all psychology in the minds of sincere Christians?
4. How do temperamental similarities and differences play out with friends, spouses, co-workers, and children? In each of these relationships is it more important to have similar or different temperaments?
5. Temperaments are inherited; how does this play out in families, ethnic communities, countries? Does it help to explain the natural virtues and vices which seem to prevail among certain groups? For instance, can one safely say that the Irish are melancholic and the English choleric? How does this affect our attitude to history?
6. Does knowing about the temperaments really help us – as the author purports – to understand our fellow men? Aristotle said that thought, by itself, never moves us to action. What moves us to compassionate with a real person (act) instead of being satisfied with understanding a theory (thought)?
Of Further Interest:
- ‘The Four Temperaments’ ballet choreographed by George Ballanchine to Paul Hindemith’s music.
- Nielsen ‘Symphony No 2, The Four Temperaments’.
Suggested Reading:
- ‘The Temperament God Gave You’ – Art & Laraine Bennett. 2005, Sophia Institute Press.
- ‘Psychology as Religion’ – Paul Vitz.
